-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- Slovakian Peter Sagan made up for a series of near misses to claim his first stage win on this year 's Tour de France in Albi Friday .

He burst clear after 205.5 km from Montepellier to win easily from Germany 's John Degenkolb -LRB- Argos Shimano -RRB- and Italian Daniele Bennati -LRB- Saxo-Tinkoff -RRB- .

South African Daryl Impey held on to the race leader 's yellow jersey after claiming it the previous day from Orica-GreenEdge teammate Simon Gerrans of Australia .

Sagan , who has already taken a stranglehold on the green points jersey he won for the first time in last year 's Tour , has been denied victory on four previous stages , but made no mistake this time after superb work from his Cannondale team .

They pushed on after the second of the day 's climb which left other star sprinters such as Mark Cavendish of Britain and Germany 's Andre Greipel , winner of stage six , trailing .

They came home in an 84-strong group nearly 15 minutes down , leaving Sagan to pay his compliments to his helpers .

`` This was a show of how strong we are as a team , '' he told the official Tour de France website .

`` Even if it 's not an ideal stage for me , I 'll keep on trying .

`` We did a lot of work on the second climb and we dropped the sprinters and the team started to believe that we could do well . ''

Impey , the first South African to don the yellow jersey , admitted it had been tough to hold on to it .

`` There was a moment on the second climb that the pressure was on , but we handled it pretty well , '' he said .

`` But I was happy to see the top of that climb , that 's for sure . ''

Sagan now has a lead of over 100 points in the battle for green , but Saturday will see the race for yellow hot up as the peloton hit the Pyrenees for the first time in the eighth stage over 195km from Castres to Ax 3 Domaines .

Impey is expected to cede the jersey as race favorites such as Chris Froome and Alberto Contador make their bid for overall domination in the mountains .

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Peter Sagan wins seventh stage of Tour de France

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Slovakian star wins from John Degenkolb and Daniele Bennati

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South African Daryl Impey retains yellow jersey

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Race hits Pyrenees Saturday